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This Month's Night Sky - NOTE: The next paragraph describes the sky as it appears at 10 pm EST (11 pm EDT) near mid- month. The sky also looks this way at 11 pm EST (midnight EDT) during the beginning of the month and at 9 pm EST (10 pm EDT) by month's end.

This Month's Night Sky - Look S as night falls to see the brightest star of the evening, SIRIUS (Canis Major). Look to its upper right to find the familiar "hour glass" asterism of constellation Orion with bright white RIGEL (lower right) and red BETELGEUSE (upper left). Below the three Belt stars, lies the Great Orion Nebula (M42 & M43) visible to the naked eye as a hazy patch of light. Now shift your gaze to the left to find another bright star, PROCYON (Canis Minor) the upper star of the "Winter Triangle" mentioned last month. Above Procyon are the Gemini twins, POLLUX and CASTOR. As the month progresses and winter becomes spring, orange ALDEBARAN (Taurus)comes into view to the W. Just to the left of Aldebaran, a star cluster, the HYADES, might be faintly visible under dark sky conditions. Above glows the more famous cluster, the PLEIADES (M45). Although smaller than the Hyades, it is much brighter and should be visible as another hazy patch of light. Some may even be able to make out the tiny "dipper" arrangement of its eight brightest stars. High above and a bit to the right is brilliant CAPELLA (Auriga) and farther right is the famous "W" asterism of Cassiopeia.

Both MERCURY and VENUS appear very low in the ESE in the early morning sky before dawn. You will need a good view of the horizon to see them. Orangish MARS shines high overhead as the sky darkens after sunset. It will steadily dim as the month progresses and become difficult to see by month's end. Yellowish SATURN glows nearly all night. Look for its largest moon, Titan. It will appear to be a bright star near the planet. JUPITER rises in the SE around 4 am but rises progressively earlier as the month ends. Its four bright moons are always interesting sights.

Calendar of Events

NOTE: For those observers not in the ET zone, convert the calendar times to your zone's time by subtracting one hour for CT, two for MT and three for PT. Don't forget to adjust for Daylight Savings Time when necessary by subtracting one hour from your planisphere's time.; Dawn and dusk times must also be corrected. See your local newspaper, TV news, or cable TV's Weather Channel for sunrise and sunset times. Unfortunately some of these events may occur during daylight hours in your area.

ALSO NOTE: Technically, a conjunction refers to objects within our solar system. Since the planets and our Moon orbit in approximately the same plane, they occasionally appear to be close to each other, although they may actually be separated by a very great distance! When this occurs, it is called a CONJUNCTION. However, the constellations of the Zodiac also occur in approximately the same plane as our solar system objects. This plane is called the ECLIPTIC. From our prospective, here on Earth, occasionally our solar system objects appear to be close to bright stars or other deep space objects, although actually separated by vast distances. They also appear, to our eyes and to other optical instruments, to be in conjunction. I will use this term to describe both events. To differentiate between solar system and deep space "close approaches", I will use quotation marks around conjunction. Thus conjunction will refer to apparent close approaches of solar system objects while "conjunction" will refer to apparent close approaches of solar system objects to deep space objects located along the ecliptic.

The distance between objects in conjunction is usually measured in degrees. For our purposes, a degree is the width of your little finger when you FULLY STRETCH OUT YOUR ARM. (Since the ratio between arm length and hand width remains fixed regardless of size, age or sex, these distances are quite accurate.) Under these conditions, the width of your three middle fingers is 5 degrees, your fist is 10 degrees and the distance between the tips of your outstretched little and index fingers is 15 degrees.

The name of the constellation associated with a deep space object will be surrounded by parentheses. Thus the bright star Polaris in located in the constellation: (Ursa Minor).

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Lunar Almanac for March 2008

Phases of the Moon	Phase and Date(s)	Best viewed before local midnight
	New 07	Deep Space Objects
	1st. Qtr 14	Planets & Moon
	Full 21	Moon
	Last Qtr 29	Deep Space & Planets

Topic of the month: Binocular Object: The Pleiades

Topic of the month: Binocular object: The Hyades (Open Star Cluster in Taurus) One of the easier constellations to recognize is Ursa Major with its "big dipper" asterism. This evening we are concerned with the "star" located at the bend in the dipper's handle. I'm told, though have never been able to actually see, that it is a visual double star Mizar (brighter) and its companion, Alcor. If your eye sight is good and you are located in a dark site, you may be able to see it without optical aid. Actually Mizar is a true double which becomes evident when viewed through a telescope. The Mizar - Alcor system is thought to consist of at least seven stars some so close that they can not be detected except spectroscopically. The Mizar double consists of two stars that are about 35 times brighter than our Sun and are separated by about five times the distance from our Sun to Pluto, our now discredited "planet" once thought to be at the edge of the solar system. On star charts, Mizar is listed depicted by the Greek letter, Zeta and Alcor by the number 80. While you're at it, notice the colors of the rest of the stars of this asterism. They run from deep orange to blue white. --See you next month! Ron, the star geezer

The star chart above was generated by Stellarium, a free open source planetarium program. This image was created by Dawn Jenkins, using Stellarium and a graphic editing program to highlight Mizar and Alcor and to format the image for this web page. Stellarium offers much to amatuer astronomers and is being used in planetariums. Simple charts like the one above can be used on the internet for non-profit, illustration purposes. Proper credit is due of course! Thank you to the makers of this fine program from Astra's Star Gate.

* Also see Ron's What's Up? Bonus Issue December 2007 for more binocular information.

This installment of "Whats Up?" is ©2008 Ronald A. Leeseberg, encoded by Dawn Jenkins for Astra's Stargate.

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